Community of Hope is a great experience for anyone who wants to deepen their faith, learn about new spiritual disciplines and expand their idea of what it is to care for others. Each of us is a caregiver to someone in some way. The healthier we are spiritually the better we can care for our spouses, kids, parents, and church community. We encourage you to look at our Community of Hope training.

Moving from "Me to We"One of the most meaningful ways we answer the call to works at Good Shepherd is through Community of Hope. Through ongoing, spiritual formation and practical lessons on care giving, Community of Hope members learn to match theological insights and spiritual practices with their experience of ministering to others.

Our Community of Hope class includes fourteen modules, starting with a retreat that provides a foundation in the principles of Benedictine spirituality. Class members call the retreat "transformational" in their spiritual growth. After the retreat, the modules focus on specific and meaty topics that directly touch on care giving and amplifying participant's ministerial gifts. All modules are taught by clergy and/or experts in their fields. Module topics include: theology of pastoral care; pastoral identity; motivational spiritual gifts; prayer, meditation and silence; listening skills and grief and loss, to name a few. Upon completion of the training, members can choose to be commissioned as lay chaplains who will serve in our Parish and community. Others will take what they have learned and apply it as the groundwork for deepening their spiritual walk and better relating to others and God.

ALL participants continue their spiritual formation through monthly Circle of Care gatherings. Circle of Care offers the experience of growing together as a Benedictine community through prayer, lectio divina (divine reading) sharing a meal and other spiritual practices that bond a Christian community. The gatherings are also a time to reflect on member's emotional and spiritual responses to to pastoral encounters.

To learn more about Community of Hope, contact Catherine Miller, Director of Pastoral Programs.

Circle of CareWhy we gather monthly as a community of pastoral caregivers:

To experience growing as a Benedictine community through prayer, lectio divina (divine reading), sharing a meal and other spiritual practices that bond a Christian community. (Acts 2:42)

Expand knowledge and community growth through continuing education with speakers and topics relative to the mission of COHI.

Reflect on one’s emotional and spiritual responses to pastoral experiences in debriefing.

To share stories from the many different places of ministry.

To practice mutual accountability and mutual support; report number of visits.

History of Community of HopeIt’s about the skills and the practices of spiritual life that prepares each one of us to be open to the other.. to believe and trust that the hospitality of the Christian faith is to look for the Christ in the other person, and as we approach them to serve them and in humility provide ministry to them. Our prayer is that the stranger will receive us and look for the Christ in us.” -Rev. Dr. Helen Appelberg, founder of Community of Hope.

In 1994, Helen Appelberg, Assistant Director of Pastoral Care at St. Luke’s Hospital in Houston was appointed to create a training course for people to become lay chaplains. With support from staff chaplains and advice from Esther de Waal, an authority on Benedictine spirituality, a fourteen week curriculum, taught by invited faculty, was established. Rooted in the ageless principals of The Rule of Benedict and sustained by clinical pastoral practices, the Community of Hope was born. As Community of Hope classes were being taught regularly in St. Luke’s, training centers started emerging in churches, hospitals, hospices and care centers across Texas and other states. Benedictine Spirituality gives Community of Hope its unique emphases - first, staying true to Jesus’ commandment to care for the sick: “When you do this to the least of these you do it also unto me.” and second, growing each participant spiritually, within a nurturing community—because those who are the healthiest spiritually will have the most to give to others in need.